Under the Bed
by LovelyLivy
Summary: They're twisted little beings that don't leave us alone when we try to sleep. Everyone has them. TIVA. JIBBS. ANGST.


**Don't understand how this one came out. For some reason my friend and I were discussing the theory of 'monsters' under the bed earlier and I think I've decided that's really code for emotional problems. Because I don't think some people like 'skeletons'. :) **

**Slight hints of JIBBS, TIVA. I forewarn you; this may be REALLY messed up. Not for the faint-hearted. **

**Alivia**

* * *

Sometimes, like tonight, she just won't think.

The rain will fall rhythmically on her window. Cold, bitter, drops, that smear and remind her of tears. Tears that have not been shed, and never will be. She remembers life, love, happiness, and resents it just the same. Because people can lie.

Even in the sweetest of ways.

Misguided beliefs lead her here, on board a ship that will soon be 'lost'. Denial makes her believe the nightmares she wakes from aren't real, that a traitor whom she loved was not shot by the best friend she loved more. Thick walls create a capable facade to hide her screams.

Nails dig into soft toffee colored skin, ebony tresses falling in a tangled mess around shaking shoulders. Relaxation is foreign; distraction a given.

But she never cries.

She just gnaws sickeningly at her lower lip, squeezes her eyes shut tight, and focuses all energy on forgetting feeling.

Time seeps like the blood from a throbbing head wound.

Then, a small ray of light, just peeking through the crack of the cell door in which she's been held for three months. An unforgettable summer.

"Couldn't live without you, I guess."

* * *

Sometimes solitude is the sweetest kind of remedy.

Like as the wood of a boat is conformed into something new, something attainable. Something renewable. The toy box in the attic used to play a sweet melody.

Spitting static, the beloved object is falling apart at the bolts.

Hours tick by, and alcohol burns like a blue flame. Then dulls because, well, all things do come to an end. He knows it too well by now.

Red is all he sees when he closes those icy orbs.

Red roses. Red liquid. Red curls.

Blending together, memories become one. Twisted, in a way. How one life could be so interlocked in another. A sweltering farmhouse in Serbia. Gardening on a spring day, running through sprinklers and making rainbows when there isn't a cloud in the sky.

That secretive smile. That loving smirk. A giggle, playing like the toy box music. Symphonies of sweet sorrow. Remembering is the easiest kind of suffering.

And yet, he takes another swig, remembering happiness.

Because the silver-haired Marine knows all this by now.

* * *

It takes a lot to say nothing. Silence is an demonic-thing to her, because once it's there it will never end unless _she's _the one to say something. Silence makes things drift.

Silence kills people.

Eyes of green like flower steams. Hair of golden like sunshine. Personifying freedom and innocence. The mirror is a bitter reminder that what once was is gone.

Because on nights like these, it's hard not to drop the mask of being okay.

She knows she's chosen the wrong job; she can't stop thinking about the people that she could loose. That she has lost. Lives that were cut like a weak piece of yarn.

A woman stands, just across her bedroom, brown hair smooth and silky. She'll cock her head to the side and purse her lips. Her pink lips that the haunted woman was able to kiss once upon a time. Or maybe it was all a dream.

Near the dresser is a blonde, curvy, blank-faced. Her green eyes won't leave the black-haired girl alone because she knows what happened. She looks at the burned flesh with a kind of practiced detachment.

There's one person the Goth hasn't taken count of, and the small form stands just to the right of her coffin. Those blonde curls. That sad smile. The woman invites the little girl to sit on her bed, and hugs her tight.

She kisses the child's forehead and doesn't cry, for once.

On nights like tonight, she clings to what's left of her childhood.

* * *

Maybe if he tried hard enough, he could make himself invisible. At times he thinks it wouldn't be that hard, because it's not as if he would be missed.

Women he loves die. People he appreciates end up seriously injured, or, perhaps, emotionally traumatized. He thinks he's pretty good at it by now.

Don't hold on to hearts, or faces. Treat each warm body you lie next to as a rock that will soon be tossed back into the lake. Leave a note, don't forget your socks.

The smell of alcohol, vomit, and cigarettes makes a soothing lull that calms his nerves, and so he breathes deeply with zest.

He tries to remember a time when it wasn't like this, and he suddenly can't.

Imagination could wind you up in a mental institution, or else he sure would fantasize about ebony locks and a full ass. A sexy accent, a coy smile.

Another part of him understands that she is so much more to him than something physical. Physical means stimuli-based reaction. All he has to do is think of her.

A strong persona. A weak emotional capacity. Perfect match made in hell.

All the more, she goes on to find someone else, and forgets that her partner needs a partner to have his back. He ends up fucking a blonde who tells her the kid is his.

They go on with their lives.

Until the baby is of African-American decent and the woman he truly loved winds up dead.

He buries his head in his hands and grinds his teeth so hard his jaw may break, because it's easier this way.

Easier to just be alone, and be done.

* * *

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.

The car keeps going as it passes the streets of the city. The soft leather of the wheel is soothing. Rubbing eyes in a weak attempt to replace the real tears with fatigue.

It's the first time she's thought of how much she's royally screwed everyone over.

She ruins lives, and sleeps at night. She scrunches up that pale, petite, face, and lets out a blood-curdling scream at nothing. At how everything seems to be nothing.

Such a simple happening.

Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Girl gets job offer and leaves, like the coward she is. She hates simple.

Like how it was supposed to be simple, leaving him. Loving someone is supposed to be simple, easy, weightless, and now she knows that is the biggest load of bullshit.

Loving him was never easy.

She rubs her eyes until they're red, and then runs a shaky hand through red tresses.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.

It was easy. Simple. What she did.

A medical procedure. Sterile. White. Check in, check out. Lots of signatures needed, because what she needs was only legalized a few years prior.

Couples walk down the street this Saturday night, and she wants to tear their hands apart from each other. Hollow...empty...weightless.

They forgot to turn off the sound when they did the ultrasound. It was fast, like a hummingbird, but there. A heartbeat.

She makes a dodge through two cars and someone honks loudly, but she ignores it. She can do whatever the hell she wants.

A life is what was 'easy'.

She didn't pay attention to the red light. Or the bright headlights blinding her. An immovable force meets an unstoppable object. Pain.

Familiar pain.

She was only here a few hours prior, so they don't know what to ask, because they kind of already know. Some people handle the procedure worse than others.

Abortion is a hard thing for anybody to deal with.

But, peeling the adhesive bandage from her skin two weeks later, the redhead knows that this is not something that can be 'dealt with'. You live with it.

* * *

You grin, bare it, and strive to become the Director of a federal agency.


End file.
